Comic Book Day: Pull List for December 11, 2013

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Who needs a brand new Godzilla trailer or the sci-fi insanity of Jupiter Ascending when you have another week’s worth of brand new comic books to read? It’s Comic Book Day once more, and this week’s pull list offers up a bounty of riches to readers of every stripe, but it certainly helps if you have a propensity for hard-hitting crime stories. The world is your oyster, dear readers, so get shuckin’ and find out what pearls are hidden in this week’s pull list!

Maybe it’s all the ads for Mob City, maybe it’s the fact that the lead character kind of looks like a blend of Punisher and Hitman, but something about Dead Body Road #1 immediately leaped out at me and kept my attention laser-focused, as its barnburner of a debut twists, turns, crashes, tortures, murders, and explodes through 26 increasingly thrilling pages. The concept isn’t anything new: A man’s family is brutally murdered, he swears revenge, and embarks on a bloody quest for redemption. The execution, however, is top notch, and Jordan wisely avoids drawing too many comparisons between series protagonist Gage and Frank Castle, instead opting to make Dead Body Road its own uniquely chaotic and immensely enjoyable beast.

When we meet our hero, he is a broken man. His wife was slain by a crew running a bank heist, and he doesn’t really have much of a plan other than to hunt down whoever did this horrific deed and make them pay with their lives. His only lead comes from a pal of his on the police force; it isn’t much, but it’s enough to send the events of Dead Body Road in motion. Suddenly, we find ourselves at a gas station where Jimmy Stowe is nervously pumping his car full of unleaded. If he looks familiar, that’s good — you don’t have short term memory loss. He’s a member of the heist crew that knocked over the bank and left Gage’s wife a crumpled, bloodied rag doll. Except he didn’t have anything to do with the murder-y part, and now his former employer sees him as a loose end that needs to be tied up. What follows is an intensely cinematic, deftly choreographed action sequence that pops off the page, thanks to stunning artwork from Matteo Scalera. Seriously, you’ll feel the wind whipping past during one high speed chase. Inventive paneling, fantastic artwork, and confident, charismatic storytelling make Dead Body Road #1 not just a pleasure to read, but a necessity for your pull list.

I was all set to put the fabulously Superman/Wonder Woman #3 on this list and wax rhapsodic about how impressive Charles Soule has been this year, and how 2013 has really seen him come into his own creatively, and how excited I am that he’s getting so many chances to knock it out of the park, but then I read the opening pages of Justice League #25 and my jaw has been on the floor ever since. It’s no secret that I’ve been absolutely loving this “Forever Evil” arc, especially when things take a turn into the occult and the paranormal like in the pages of Justice League Dark, but issue #25 feels like a real step forward. We’ve slowly but surely been getting to know the insane, profoundly malicious members of the Crime Syndicate, and issue #25 takes us into the harrowing backstory of Owlman, better known as Thomas Wayne Jr. He’s a vicious little bastard, and even when his motives seem pure, they’re still dripping with ill intent.

It definitely seems like Johns is steering the unwieldy ship that is the “Forever Evil” crossover event towards its endgame, one which will pit the increasingly erratic Ultraman and the conniving Owlman against one another, but with so many other wildcards and unchecked pawns on the board, it’s difficult to tell just where it’s going. Instead, issue #25 wisely narrows its field of view and follows Owlman for the majority of the issue, fleshing out his backstory and giving us a sense of his motivations in all of this. It’s a weird sensation to empathize with someone while simultaneously reviling them, but it’s a credit to Johns’ writing that he can elicit such a response. Per usual, Doug Mahnke’s pencil work is delightful; there’s just something about his style that screams “superheroes” in all the right ways, and what better canvas for that talent than the hero-heavy cast of Justice League. If nothing else, Justice League #25 is a compelling Elseworlds story that just so happens to be taking place in the main DCU. That being said, it’s an absolute blast to read and I’d put good money on the fact that you’ll put the book down, shake your head slowly, and say, “Oh, Jesus…”, and I mean that in the best way possible.

It’s rare that a comic comes along with its world so fully fleshed out from the get-go, but Day Men manages to drop a metric ton of exposition, rich family history, and backstory on us in its two issues without sacrificing its narrative momentum. A war is brewing between two of the most powerful vampire families, the Virgos and the Ramses, but even they can’t do everything themselves, what with not being able to go out during the daytime and all that. Enter the titular Day Men, human enforcers who are employed to assassinate rival vampires and their family holdings when it’s too dangerous for vampires to go outside and do it themselves.

Issue 2 finds us on the cusp of a family rivalry exploding into a full-blown Godfather-style war, and David Reid is unfortunately caught in the crossfire. Granted, it’s his job as a Day Man for the Virgo family, but as he defends their interests from interlopers, he is starting to realize there’s something sinister happening behind the scenes. And when he finds out that the Ramses’ legendary hitman, Jacob the Burner, is hot on his tail, it’s out of the frying pan and into the blazing inferno. Matt Gagnon and Michael Alan Nelson’s story is what draws you in, but it’s Brian Stelfreeze’s artwork that breathes new life into the undead awesomeness. Don’t get caught sleeping in your coffin on this one; go grab Day Men #2.